What This Drawing Taught Me About Four-Dimensional Spacetime
My aim as a theoretical physicist is to unite quantum theory with Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. While there are a few proposals for this unification, such as string theory and loop quantum gravity, many roadblocks to a complete unification remain.
Einstein’s theory tells us the gravitational force is a direct manifestation of space and time bending. The sun bends the fabric of space, much like a sleeping person bends a mattress. Planetary orbits, including Earth’s, are motion along the contours of the bent space created by the sun. This theory provides some critical insights into the nature of light.
As I gazed at the drawing, I could feel the artists challenging me to reconsider the nature of light.
Quantum mechanics, however, says many weird things about physical reality. For instance, our experience is to occupy a single region of space. But when a quantum particle moves through space, it considers all paths at the same time, as if many copies of the particle coexisted at the same time.
For years I have been stuck in my research, unable to make the progress I envisioned early in my career. Notably, quantum mechanics carefully takes the role of the observer into the structure of the theory. But it has proven incredibly difficult to include the role of the observer in a quantum spacetime.
Late last summer, I had the most unexpected breakthrough. Beth Jacobs, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences’ Board of Governors, invited me and some friends to her New York City apartment to (2011), an intricate drawing of the famous gardens designed by Robert Irwin at The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, was displayed on the balcony of Jacobs’ apartment overlooking Central Park, with the backdrop of the New York City skyline lit with a warm orange sky moments before sunset.
